This is not a difficult game to play. I do not need to tell
you how to play it, unless you’re like “OH NO MY ARROW KEYS DON’T WORK!” Then I
could be like, “Whoa, bro. Clam down. You just have to click the arrows in the
bottom left of your screen.” Past that, though, there is not a lot of mastery
involved in J. Allen Henderson's “adventure game with a twist,” Get Lost.
But simple, my friends, can be beautiful. Or in this case,
witty, sarcastic, delightful, confusing, and bizarre. It’s really great.
Get Lost is a point-and-click visually, aurally, and gamerly
enhanced ode to the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books, which I’m sure were a part
of your rich childhood. Well, now can enjoy them anew in your maybe-not-so-rich
adulthood (though who am I to judge?). Do you want to be a man? A woman? A
rabbit? It’s your choice! All the characters, though their lives be nasty,
brutish, and short (à la Hobbes), had a whole bunch fascinatingly diverse and
twisted paths to explore. Maybe this time you should go northeast? Southwest?
Up? Left? You will get lost. But it’s okay. That’s life.
Now listen, the game looks great. It really does. Everyone
has a moustache. There are many candy stores. You can click on things and they
do stuff. It’s cute and weird and maybe you’ll like it, too. On top of that, it
sounds great. Really excellent use of piano as a sound effect paired with just
the right music to match every scene. Every once in a while you run into some
out-of-place 8-bit aspect of the world, which is charmingly and frankly described
in the narrative as “8-bit” and are accompanied by some rambunctious action-game
chip tunes.
Like any good game, there aren’t very many repercussions
when you die. Sometimes you go back to the beginning, but come one. It’s a
Choose-Your-Own-Adventure. That’s really not so bad. And all of the narrative
descriptions, including those of your deaths, are blunt and sarcastic. I
greatly appreciate this.
Along the left side of your screen, you’ll see two bars: one
labeled “bugs” and one labeled “eggs.” For a long time, I thought these were
for absolutely nothing at all and were just some odd joke from the game
designer. This was funny. Then I found an egg and realized they were actually
for something, but just barely. This was also funny. Maybe I should keep
playing and find them all, if that’s a thing. Maybe something cool will happen.
I almost hope that nothing happens. That would be brilliant.
All in all, this game was great. Every time I started
getting bored, something delightfully unexpected happened, often resulting in
my demise. This game truly has fabulous and inspired writing. You should play it. If you find all the eggs and bugs, tell me what happens, okay?
My Rating:
I could…
a. be a rabbit, I guess.
b. Take it
c. Leave it